Issue_11

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ISSUE 11

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SPEARFISHING

DOWNUNDER

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This

Issue

14

Target Species

20

Hoo...ray

22

Cobia Triple Check

46

Unfortunate Events

32

51

36

52

‘06 Bluewater Classic

Pelagic Fever

44

Ten Steps

2 Days of Luck

QLD Kings

54

Fijian Honeymoon

56

Crystal Days

64

Last Day Doggie

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Dawn to Dusk

Regular

Features

06 ~ 07 ~ 11 ~ 12 ~ 16 ~ 24 ~ 30 ~ 41 ~ 61 ~ 68 ~ 71 ~

Editorial Letters to the Editor AUF Report Product Review - Pelaj Wetsuit Speared Pelagics Spearo’s Gallery Young Spearos SDM E-mag Project Boat Fish Photos For Dummies A Touch of Madness

Cover Shot: Brett Vercoe 14kg Dolphinfish

Brett Vercoe - 4.2kg Goldspot Wrasse

Centre Shot: Gavin Smithers +20kg Spanish Mackerel

HOO...

HOO.....

ray ray

By Timmy Forster

H

ow many of us know the feeling of despair after missing an opportunity of taking a great fish? At the magical time when you spot this fish of your dreams and it is in range you realize;

1) Your gun is pointing in the wrong direction, 2) You’re unloaded, 3) Your safety is on or, 4) You just plain miss a sitter shot and have no explanation for it.

Well for me, it had been the story of my whole trip to date. It was 9 days into a 12 day Extreme Coral sea trip, the last 9 days I had been witnessing my North Shore club mates Ant, Judge & Ted shoot Wahoo and Dogtooth tuna left right and centre yet I had not yet landed a good fish myself and time was running out as we were moving reefs that evening and didn’t know if I’d get another shot at fish like the ones we had seen in previous days. I had missed a number of opportunities on great fish which I thought were in the bag and I couldn’t understand how my trusty gun could miss such big fish by so much.

After a good morning session for the other boys in my tinny, and missing a few opportunities on Wahoo, I finally turned to Ted for advice as to what was wrong and we concluded that I had overpowered my 1.4Rob Allen making it inaccurate. At lunch I took off the old rubbers and the slip tip shaft and put on 2 standard length 16mm rubbers and a 7.5mm RA shaft, the exact setup all three of my boat buddies had been using the whole trip. I was now ready to take on the last afternoon drift session.

I rolled into the water, top of the first drift of the afternoon. First in I set the teasers and loaded my gun as the other boys prepared to jump in themselves. As Judge hits the water I spot a good Wahoo, all lit up in excitement and making its way quickly for the teasers. It is constantly running through my mind that at this point of the trip I am the only one from our 4 man team who has not landed a Wahoo and I didn’t want to let my mates down again as I had stuffed up so many opportunities this trip already. I am the only one loaded up and Wahoo-less so I told myself “this one is yours Timmy”. I made a dive to around 10m to intercept the erratic movements of the fish. As I get close to the fish it starts to

“As Judge hits the water I spot a good Wahoo, all lit up in excitement and making its way quickly for the teasers.”

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turn away and I know that I need to take a shot or it will swim out of my range. I aim for the back of the head and let fly. The spear buried itself through the soft body of the Wahoo and it took off like 17kg of pure blue water madness had just been unleashed.

Leaving a bubble trail in its wake its speed was phenomenal. I let go of all my gear and headed to the surface. As I got to the surface I heard cheering from the boys as they yelled “fish on!”.

Adrenaline pumping, I gave a cheer and started swimming with my float. Having not experienced fighting a large fish before I was glad when Ted came over and offered his words of wisdom “you’ve got all day Timmy, take your time”. I took in this advice and calmed myself down as much as possible, and patiently waited till the fish tired itself out and I could pull it up with not too much trouble. I noticed as it came up that the flopper had now slipped back inside the fish and the shot didn’t look too secure but I was determined to land this fish without a second shot. As I got it into my arms and introduced my knife to its brain it was the happiest moment of my life! This 17kg of pure blue water madness was mine! My first Wahoo! My biggest fish!

All the effort and disappointment I had gone through in the past week to land a trophy fish seemed to drift away in the current as I handed the fish to Ant in the tinny. The boys were almost as stoked as me when I landed my first Wahoo, it wasn’t just a victory for me, it was a victory for all of us as we had worked tirelessly as a close knit team for 9 days straight drifting, burleying, teasing and with this fish, finally we were all victorious.

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cobia triple

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check

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x Photos by Ant Judge

By Julian Chan

Y

ou hear it countless times from fellow spearos: “Check, double-check and triple-check every shark you see, it could be a Cobia”. I didn’t realise how much this rang true until my most recent encounter with a monster Cobe on the NSW North Coast.

The date was set a month in advance, I hassled boat captain Mike Bonnici until he agreed to take me on a trip up north. It was back to the Pre-Xmas Bash 2005 crew of myself, Mike, Ant and Judge, fellow members from the North Shore Underwater Club. It was late May, one of the last months of “summer” diving in NSW, and we wanted to make the most of the good water. Joining us was another boatload of NS divers, JLo captaining his 445R; Angus and the lone St George Club representative Tuna filling the spots.

The Cobia I have shot before were swimming with Stingrays at the time.

This Cobia was different; it was a loner.

At this spot I usually swim around the shallower and more protected side of the island. It is the quickest and shortest path to the area I like to fish.

On this day the vis was good, between 15-20m, the current wasn’t raging and, best of all, it was dead flat. So I did some exploration and swam the long way over the deep drop-off which quickly hits flat sand.

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A few dives drifting with the current really didn’t produce much of anything, just a few dart and queenfish in the wash. This spot is a spooky dive, I’m constantly looking over my shoulder on the way down and on the bottom.

I dive and hover about 8m down and I can see ripples in the sand below me and the fringe of reef and sand to my right. Below me is a good size Whaler shark legging it up-current. I dive on the shark, just to let him know who is boss and just in case it is a Cobia (check). I was actually diving to look if any cobia were swimming under him as well! As I level off at 12m and fin up current, I am convinced I am looking at a Whaler, but check the tail to be 100% sure (double-check). The tail of the fish doesn’t look like a Shark’s tail; I’m just trying to remember what a Cobia’s tail looks like. The fish doesn’t have the chocolate and white stripe of a Cobia either. I’m chasing this fish down and it turns to face me (triplecheck). I pack it, I realise I’ve been aggressively diving on a Cobia the whole time, and it’s a tank!

The fish is curious and by now my body language has changed completely, I’m trying to get it to come into range. At a guess it looks BIG, 20kg plus.

I’ve been down for a while and hovering at 15m and I wish the Cobia would hurry up and swim up to my spear! No time left, the 7mm spear leaves my 1.4m EDGE and I see the cobia flick it’s tail as I fire and it is actually further away than I thought and I nick him through the wrist of the tail. It might not be on much, but IT’S ON! Clawing to the surface for a breath, I see my 7L foam float rocket below

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me, with my whistle and mirror spinning in tow. “This is a first” I say to myself, as I realise my float has just disappeared about 15m down and steaming south. I can just see the mirror flashing every so often as I overarm across the surface chasing my float. It slowly rises to the surface and I conclude that I have lost the fish of a lifetime. “Dammit!!!”

Wait, it’s still pulling me south, must be hanging on by a thread, so I release all pressure on the line.

About 40m behind me I can see Ant’s snorkel poking from the water, so I scream my lungs out at him: “Ant! Ant! I need a second shot!” This is not the first time Ant has been around to second shot my fish, thanks mate for responding so quickly. Ant legs it over and dives to check out the shot on my fish, which he confirms is terrible and slowly tearing out.

Cheers for letting me know a 2.5m Shark is circling my Cobia and angling for a bite of the fish! The race is on to beat the Shark to my Cobia, I have adrenaline pumping through my body and my heart rate has skyrocketed.

I can’t make it 15m down to second shot this fish. Who better to have than Ant, who takes a quick breath and descends with his 1.3m RA and places a solid shot through the shoulder of the fish, exiting from the belly, stringing the fish. I swear the Shark scowled at Ant for taking away an easy feed.

I haul like hell after I see the spear hit and the fish comes up tail first. My spear is hanging on to 7cm of Cobia skin, not what you’d call a holding shot! Fortunately, Ant’s spear has hurt the fish badly, and the fish isn’t putting up much of a struggle now and I can descend and wrap my arms around the Cobia. As I fin to the surface bear-hugging this fish I can’t believe how fat it is! As I take my first breath there is hooting and cheering, hi-fives are in order for the team effort in securing this Cobia. I dispatch the fish, soon I am finning a beeline back to the boat. The Cobe dragged me about 300m down-current, so I had a good swim ahead of

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me. Plenty of time to replay the last 15 minutes of my life over and over. My emotions are a mess: a mixture of relief, excitement, shock and remorse. I promise that I will put it to good use and respect the fish that I have just taken.

The weekend proved to be one of personal bests. Tuna got his PB Kingy, Judge got his biggest Cobia also.

Back at the ramp it was fingers crossed that the fish would tick over the glass ceiling of 30kg. It did, the fish weighed 33kg and is my biggest fish to date.

Bonnici, this trip would not be possible without your enthusiasm for trips away; your Sea Devil rocks. Thank you Ant for securing my fish with that great second shot, and for filming and compiling the video.

I didn’t even bother to get vertical as the boys pulled anchor and moved off to the next spot, these guys are so used to seeing me in the bottom of the boat after 12 months of seasick incidents that now it doesn’t even rate a mention and they have learned to skilfully dance around my pitiful corpse, occasionally throwing a towel over my sunburnt torso if overcome by a sense of goodwill.

I do not remember the trip to Chopper Reef as by now I had also thrown pain killers into the alchemy ……my head ached unmercilessely, I felt sick and now I could only mutter incoherently as the full rush of drugs coursed through my veins…..I vaguely remember somewhere in the background feeling a spatter of cold water landing on my now burnt skin as the boys slipped into the briney, and I slipped into la la land.

There we were…3km offshore……perfect conditions……2 floats moving about the ocean to and fro …………and one miserable, hapless creature, curled up in a foetal position, wallowing in a mix of fish blood and water in the bowels of the boat……things could not get any worse!

Whats the chance of a humble garden variety bee being 3km out sea ?

temptation as my pride was now on the line!

After about an hour of nothing the only thing I could find that vaguely resembled anything decent was a plump little Leatherjacket which I prodded into a sporting position before pinning it cleanly…….. it was indeed the unluckiest fish in the ocean that day, but I was now on the board with a fine tasting specimen.

I awoke to a searing sensation in my eye area…and as I groped semi consciously at my face, I felt the fat little body of the bee ……half opened one eye to identify the source of my affliction and tossed it into the breeze.

Once again…..I could feel the bile building up in the back of my raw throat….and made my way back to the boat and as I flopped back to the deck after tossing my fat little Leathery into the esky, I closed my eyes and waited for the boys to return so I could exhibit my trophy!

I had one hand over my eye…writhing in pain……one on my pounding head…..and once again…..turned myself inside out over the side of the boat.

Michael was first…..he hauled in a fine Blue Bar and casually flung it next to his Mackerel, his obligation fulfilled as he now had his Jack and Blue Bar once again!

This coincided with the sounds of Michael trying to stuff the frame of a 15 plus kilo Spaniard into the esky…..I could only watch with anguish through one half open eye……and croak something incoherent, while buckling into a heap on the floor.

I tried to show some mild enthusiasm and dismissed any notion of mentioning my quarry.

Some time later….the pain killers began to do their work…and feeling a little better, I decided to push myself and go for a little paddle of my own to try and regain some sort of credibility within our little party.

With only one eye working to its full potential, I finned off into the powder blue water……in search of a worthy adversary…….the only thing that came close was a small school of Rat Kings which were buzzing around me like starving flies…….but I resisted the

Mongrel #1....MIchael Featherstone with a nice Spanish mackerel AND opposite the “standard fare” a Blue barred parrot and a Mangrove jack

John popped up over the side….with a big grin on his face ….I know that grin……and waited with great anticipation as he drew in his rigline….he reached down, and from the water produced the most beautiful specimen of a Venus tuskfish I have ever seen…….all 5.375kg of it…and a Pending new Australian Record.

Mercy was nigh as the boys decided to call it a day and head home.

I was now convinced the worst was over…….my baked body

Queensland

K i n g s

By Murray Thomas.

A

fter a year and a half of being on the road it was time to take a break and spend a month back home in South Queensland. It was great to catch up with everyone and hit the water without needing a wetsuit once again. After spending the last five months in Tassie, I really missed the warmer water. Timbo and I decided to take a day trip to the Noosa National Park to a headland where we have had a few productive dives in the past.

With a week of perfect glassy conditions, the water looked very inviting.

We lugged the kayak down the beach and loaded all the gear on in the usual unorganized way. It’s amazing how much crap you can fit on these things. We punched through a few small breakers on the way out and soon found ourselves anchored in about fifty feet of clear water, fumbling around to get our gear on. After finally getting organized we slipped into the drink without flipping the kayak over and started finning around in search of suitable terrain. We were lucky enough to snag low tide and enjoyed half an hour or so of very little current at first until finding a promising looking rocky outcrop just as the current picked up. I dropped down a few times to see what was around but struggled to get any bottom time. After about nine months of shallow shore dives I was feeling a bit rusty so I just took it easy for a while and stuck to the mid water while Tim went bottom bashin!

eleven foot mark cruised in underneath us. By the time I lifted my head above the water to tell Tim and looked down again, the shark was out of sight. I cautiously delt with the Kingfish and Tim decided to put both fish on top of the kayak, out of our uninvited guest’s reach. Old mate didn’t bother us again as we spent the next hour just checking out the scenery which included a couple of Loggerhead turtles and quite a few Giant rays.

After a relaxing end to the dive we towed our fish home behind the kayak just as the sun was setting. It would have been quite romantic if Tim was a hot chick! Not to worry, another succesfull outing in perfect conditions.

Gotta be happy with that!

A school of nervous Snapper cruised around under us but managed to stay just out of range each time we dropped down. It’s amazing how much longer you can hold your breath when the fish are on though.

After stirring the bottom up on my way up from a dive, a curious Sweetlip cruised in to see what the cloud of sand was all about. I descended again but it looked like Sweetlip was off the menu also as he took off weaving through the rocky patches of sand. just as I was watching my dinner escape, I heard Tim’s gun go off and looked up to see what he had whacked. A solid Kingfish raced past just above me with Tim’s spear flexing out of it’s side. The Yellowtail hit second gear and the spear soon came out letting the slip tip do its job. After realizing there was no escape the Kingy headed straight for the bottom where it began to bang up the spear and jinkai. Tim wasn’t really keen on seeing his new gear getting trashed so he heaved the fish up to mid water to continue the fight.

A school of smaller Kings joined in but being about five kilos they were a bit small to spear, plus having two kingfish on at once wouldn’t be the smartest idea either. After a ten minute battle Tim finally had his fish by the tail and under the gills. At fifteen kilos it was Tim’s second best Kingy. Things went quiet for a while after this so we decided to use burley with an almost instant result. A school of Yakkers below went berserk over the burley followed by another good Kingfish racing in and nabbing one of the baitfish in a flash. The Kingy then circled the bait ball as I dropped down but suddenly raced off in pursuit of a couple of Yakkers that broke away from the school. I stayed with the baitfish and the big fella soon charged back in to see who or what was threatening his food stockpile.

The Kingfish seemed to have no fear and swam right up to me before quickly turning away. I took a hurried shot as the fish quartered away, aiming roughly behind the eye. The stainless shaft found its mark and sent the Yellowtail belly up, stoned as a Nimbin hippy! I went to the surface to brain and bleed the fish when a Bronze whaler around the

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Chow time

Directions

Mustard/Garlic crayfish Ingredients 1 cray 1 clove of garlic 250ml cream 2 tablespoons of wholegrain mustard 1 tablespoon of fruity white wine

Cut cray tail in halves down the centre and pan fry with legs in butter with thinly sliced garlic. Cook at medium heat for about 5 minutes with the lid on. Flip cray tails and legs over, then stir in cream, wholegrain mustard and wine. Cook for a further 5 minutes or so with lid on again.

This recipe also works well with steak, chicken or fish and scollups.

Enjoy!

Last Day

D O G G I E

by Matt Poulton

IIt was our last day out at Cato Reef. I badly wanted to shoot a Dogtooth tuna. After all, that was the reason I was on a trip to the Coral sea. I wanted to pit my skills against one of the toughest fighting fish, pound for pound in the ocean.

After arriving at Cato our plans to target Doggies got badly sidetracked by an incredible Wahoo aggregation. I guess you can’t really blame us especially when there were some real horses amongst them. Anyway it was the last day. During the morning session we were successful in attracting quite a few Doggies. Unfortunately we were not able to capitalise. I just wanted one too badly and as a result I wasn’t relaxed in the water and the fish could sense it. The other guys had no luck either.

As it got closer to midday we were seeing the tuna less often and I started to get discouraged. We headed back to the Tura for lunch.

After a quick bite to eat I got sick of waiting for the other guys and decided to slip in off the back of the Tura for a quick look. I grabbed my flasher and some burley and entered the water. I loaded my gun and then proceeded to shred up a large cloud of burley. I drifted with the slight current while working the flasher. Just as the last of the burley reached the sand 25m below I caught sight of the unmistakable white dots of three tuna coming in. This time I was completely relaxed. I took a quick breath and dived as

smoothly and quietly as possible. I kept my eyes focussed on the sand and descended at a steady pace. As soon as I got into range of the sand I levelled off with my gun at the ready. As I looked up a Doggy cruised into range. I lined it up and pulled the trigger. It was a long shot and the spear entered much lower than I would have liked however with the slip tip I was still fairly confident.

I powered for the surface and reached it just in time to grab my last float.

I yelled “I got one” next thing I new I was getting towed through the water like nothing I had experienced previously. Wahoo are renowned for their blistering speed but even the 41kg specimen from a few days earlier did not compare to the power of this fish. At one stage my 35L RA float was about 5 metres from the sand, mostly compressed and flapping due to the speed of the tow. The whole time I was thinking imagine if you shot one over a 100kg. After a few minutes the fish slowed down and then I was able to gain line rapidly. As the fish came into view I could see a huge plume of blood pouring out of the fish. Although the shot was low it had passed through right by the heart and the fish would have struggled with blood loss. By this stage some of the guys that were still on the Tura had jumped into the tinnies and raced over. Baden passed me a second gun which I loaded and then delivered a finishing shot. As soon as I had done that, a huge school of Doggies came in and started circling my now dead tuna. The fish ranged in size from about 30kg to some absolute beasts in the eighties and nineties. One fish in particular would have probably gone over the 100kg mark.

It was an awesome experience. I don’t think that I have ever wanted a fish as badly as that Doggy, and to see all those huge tuna was a major bonus. Back on the Tura my Doggy pulled the needle down to 45kg. I was stoked. Not bad for a first effort.

Dawn to Dusk

By Brett Craik Producing a varied catch at times can be a little difficult as you have to vary not only your techniques and equipment but most importantly locations in any given day. Fortunately diving from Brisbane where a healthy mix of fish species can be found it is possible to produce such a varied catch although you need to be prepared for some travel and hence a long day.

Good batch of Crays from the Seas off Brisbane

We had a plan for an epic day such as this for quite some time its just we never got around to it like many of our other hair brained schemes, that was until a fortuitous combination of favourable tide times and favourable winds came together to fit our plan perfectly so we made the appropriate arrangements and we were off. It was going to be a lot of travel and with the escalating fuel prices it was going to be expensive too so we had make it worthwhile.

We arrived at the first location prior to the sun even waking up so we had plenty of time to get all geared up before the sun would grant us enough light to dive the first location which was a wreck in about 12 – 14 metres on sand. Upon entering the water we were met with a pleasing 15 metres vis, more than we expected, the wreck being clearly visible from the surface although the current had started to run so we had to moderately kick to stay on top of it.

I went down first and as I approached the hull I noticed several very large shapes moving around the structure, as I closed in on the hull I could see the large shapes were Qld groupers three of which would have easily gone 150 kilos while the forth was definitely in excess of 250 kilos.

It took a few dives for us to get used to them as they flew in next to us on every dive. They were both curious but cautious at the same time, which I always find peculiar considering they could kill us at any given moment if they so chose to. They would look straight at us with their mouths wide open, and we are talking mouths you could easily fit right into, they are such truly impressive creatures.

A rare visitor to the waters of Brisbane - Doug with a nice Coral trout

I lay on top of the wreck and looked over the side to see a nice Tuskfish swimming merrily along the sand, he did not see the thunder bearing down on him from above, in a brief moment he was stoned which I was very pleased about as the mere thought of a powerful Tusky taking me into the wreck gave me a headache. I returned to the surface with a very wary eye on the Grouper which had now decided to escort the fish up, interestingly they did not attempt to take any fish while we were there I was left thinking perhaps they only ate whole cows. Doug was not phased by these brutes as he passed me on my ascent, he too wanted a shot. I dealt with the fish at the surface while watching Dougie, I could see him target and fire although it was not quite clear enough to tell what fish he had stoned until he pulled it clear of the wreck. Then that familiar shape of a coral trout took form, Doug was excited hitting the surface “I got a trout”, while it wasn’t that big it was nothing to be sneezed at as we don’t get many around Brisbane, although I have noticed more appearing the past year or so, perhaps the ocean’s are warming up. Can’t complain about the trout, the more the better, bring em down I say!

Now it was Dan’s turn, landing on the sand near the corner of the main hull he then began swimming around it in search of prey when suddenly a Mangrove jack appeared in front of him from under some twisted metal, it began to swim away but not fast enough to evade Dan’s projectile as it slammed into the jacks gillplate. Doug was set to go again and found himself lying on the sand out the back of the wreck when he looked towards a large school of Bream one of which, way in the back, looked a

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Doug with a hamsone Jobfish of 7kg little different, it was larger too. Doug extended and took the shot which was so far away it was almost out of sight, the beauty of using a 1.4m gun, he then began hauling up a nice snapper to add to the already quite diversified selection and we had only been going for 30 minutes.

The current had picked up by now and was becoming a little too strong to effectively stay on the wreck without expending much needed energy for the dive, it was too small an area to drift dive so a change of location was sought, next, up a ledge from 14 – 23 metres.

The visibility here was just good enough to make out the drop from the surface, that’s really all you need to work the ledge. The first few dives produced little so we hit the area with some pretty heavy burley, the response was predictably a few Cod appearing within minutes a couple of which took our fancy and ended up in the esky, but overall, the area proved to be a little barren, so time to move again.

Next up was some shallow coffee rocks which proved to be very quiet, it really is an on-off sort of place like many of the joints around Brisbane, with the visibility not too crash hot here we did not waste too much time and just kept on moving.

This was followed by a drift in a well known Mackerel haunt, we were confident of finding a few fish here although at first sight the water appeared a little dirty from the boat but it turned out to be manageable. I entered the water first only to have my spear fall out of the gun as I must have knocked the trigger in the boat somehow, as I was pulling it back up to me for a reload I could here Doug start to yell “Mackerel!” I could not see but assumed he was yelling at me since I was first in the water he would have no doubt assumed I was ready to take it down as I normally would have been if it was not for a cruel twist of fate.

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Doug, wasting no further time swiftly loaded and took a dive racing down to 15 metres where the Mackerel had been. The Mackerel had not surprisingly disappeared at this point but Doug held on, making some attracting noises to the full extent of his breath hold and just when he could take it no longer, the Mackerel made a timely reappearance.

This was a fatal mistake as a shaft came crashing through and out the other side of the body. The shot was solid so the Mackerel was quickly killed and boated while Dan and I continued to dive, now with the added advantage of a burley trail we were creating.

Doug was ready again the burley now causing more activity on the reef below he descended once more to the deck, this time in 20 metres, well out of sight of us but I could hear his gun go off before finally seeing his dark form come into vision, followed by an obviously stoned fish. The fish was brought closer and I could see it was a lovely Jobbie around the 7 kilo mark. They are such a nice fish to eat, hunt and to look at too, Doug has a knack of finding big ones. Both Dan and I were kind of dumbfounded as we had both been down there only moments before and not seen anything like that, such is diving and such are fish.

Doug boated that fish while Dan and I pushed ourselves a little harder now but we still could not seem to find anything worthy of our shafts.

That did not seem to be a problem for Doug as on the next dive, his third of the drift, what does he do but spear a second smaller Jobfish! It really was an amazing drift, a Spanish and two Jobbies in the space of 25 minutes from three dives, there are just so many quality fish around 20 metres, its staggering at times but I guess you do have to get to ‘em.

Rather unsurprisingly we decided to stay in this area a little longer but the next drift produced very little, its strange like that, when the wind changed towards the end of the drift we thought time to move once more, we had more reefs to explore and being on a tight schedule we had to go now.

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